The battle, if such it could be called, was almost over. The Frenchmen, unarmed, taken utterly by surprise, could do nothing except to try to save their lives. But every figure with a white face was hunted round the deck to be slaughtered pitilessly by men mad with excitement, except for one group that flung themselves grovelling on the deck screaming for mercy — the killing of one or two of them sated the bloodlust and the survivors were jostled into a corner by the taffrail. Hornblower had a feeling that a few men had dashed up the rigging and were sheltering there; they could be dealt with later.
He looked round the deck; to the eerie illumination afforded by the lanterns swinging in the shrouds was added, periodically, the light from the cabin door, coming and going as the door swayed open and shut with the rolling of the ship. It was grotesque as well as horrible, the deck littered with corpses. Was that a dead man coming to life? Someone recovering consciousness? Certainly it was a body heaving upward but in a way no living man would get to his feet. Anything was possible in these hideous surroundings. No! That man was dead and being shoved up from below. He must have fallen across the after scuttle and the crew below the deck was getting him out of the way. As Hornblower looked the dead body rolled and fell with a thump on to the deck and there was the scuttle with two hands uplifted through it. Hornblower leaped, slashing with his sword, and the hands disappeared to the accompaniment of a yell from below. Hornblower drew the sliding cover across and found the bolt and shot it. That would make things momentarily secure.
Hornblower straightened himself up to find himself face to face with another figure that had come forward to take the same precaution, and idiotically he tightened his grip on his sword hilt — he was not ready for a black face so close to his.
“We’ve settled it,” said Baddlestone’s voice — Hornblower recognized the silhouette at once, now.
“Where’s Meadows?” croaked Hornblower, his throat still dry with tension.
“He’s a goner,” answered Baddlestone, with a wave of his arm.
The cabin door swung open again as if in response, throwing an arc of light over the deck, and Hornblower remembered. On the far side of the scuttle lay two corpses. That one must be Meadows, lying half on his side, arms and legs asprawl. Standing out from his chest was the handle of a rapier, and it became apparent that two feet of the blade stuck out through his back so as to maintain him in that position. In the black face the teeth shone whitely, as Meadows had bared them in the ferocity of his attack; the swaying lights made his mouth look as if his lips were still going through contortions of rage. Beyond him lay the French captain in white shirt and breeches — only partly white now — but where face and head should be there was only something horrible. On the deck lay the cutlass which had dealt the shattering blow, wielded in one final explosion of Meadows’ vast strength as the rapier went through his heart. Years ago the émigré French nobleman who had given Hornblower fencing lessons had spoken of the ‘coup des deux veuves’, the reckless attack that made two widows — here was an example of it.
“Any orders, sir?” Here was Bush recalling him to reality.
“Ask Captain Baddlestone,” replied Hornblower.
A touch of formality would clear the nightmares from his mind, but at the same instant something else occurred to remind him that action was still instantly demanded. There was a crashing sound beside him and a jarring shock felt in the soles of his feet told him that the Frenchmen below were battering at the scuttle. From forward there came similar noises and a voice hailed.
“Cap’n, sir! They’re trying to bash up the hatch cover!”
“There was a whole watch below when we boarded,” said Baddlestone.
Of course, that would help to account for the comparative ease of the victory — thirty armed men attacking fifty men surprised and unarmed. But it meant that fifty enemies — more, including idlers — were below and refusing to be subdued.
“Get for’rard and deal with it, Bush,” said Hornblower — it was only when Bush had departed that Hornblower realized that he had omitted the vital ‘Mr’. He must be quite unstrung.
“We can keep ‘em down all right,” said Baddlestone.
It would hardly be possible for the men below to force their way to the deck through a hatchway or scuttle efficiently guarded, even if the covers were to be pounded to fragments as was clearly happening at the moment. But to maintain guards every moment, over the scuttle and the hatchway and the prisoners aft by the taffrail, and at the same time to provide crews to handle the brig and the Princess meant a good deal of strain.
The light was playing strange tricks; the unmanned wheel seemed to be turning of its own volition. Hornblower stepped across to it. There was not the easy feel to it which might be expected of it with the ship hoveto, and then it suddenly spun free.
“They’ve cut the tiller ropes down belong,” he reported to Baddlestone.
At that moment there was a sledgehammer blow on the deck under their feet, which made them leap in surprise.
Hornblower felt his feet tingling as though from a violent impact.
“What the devil—?” he asked.
Before he could answer there was another enormous blow against the underside of the deck, and, staring downwards, he could see a tiny glimmer of light some inches from his right foot; there was a small jagged hole there.
“Come away!” he said to Baddlestone and retreated to the scuppers. “They’re firing muskets down there!”
A one ounce musket ball fired at a range of no more than an inch or two would strike the deck with the force of twenty sledgehammers, and it would pierce the one inch plankwith residual velocity sufficient, doubtless, to shatter a leg or two or take a life.
“They guessed there’d be someone standing near the wheel,” said Baddlestone.
Splintering crashes forward told how the Frenchmen were destroying the hatchcover there, and now there began a similar noise from the scuttle aft; it sounded as if they had found an axe down below and were using it.
“It’s not going to be easy to sail her home,” said Baddlestone; the whites of his eyes indicated that he was turning an inquiring gaze on Hornblower.
“If they won’t surrender it’s going to be damned difficult,” said Hornblower.
Often when the deck of a ship was carried by a rush the survivors below were demoralized sufficiently to yield, but should they determine on resistance the situation became complicated, especially when, as in the present case, the numbers below were far greater than the numbers above and were apparently being led by someone of energy and courage. Hornblower had once or twice envisaged such a situation, but even his imagination had not gone as far as picturing musket balls being fired up through the deck.
“If we get the brig underway,” he said, “there’s the relieving tackles—”
“And Hell to pay,” said Baddlestone.
It was possible to steer a ship after a fashion by adroit handling of the sails if the rudder were useless, but down below there were the relieving tackles, and half a dozen sturdy men heaving on them could drag the rudder round, not merely nullifying the efforts of the men on deck but actually imperilling the ship by laying her unexpectedly aback.
“We’ll have to bolt for it,” said Hornblower; it was an irritating, an infuriating suggestion to have to make, and Baddlestone reacted with a string of oaths worthy of the dead Meadows.
“No doubt you’re right,” he said at the end of it. “Ten thousand pounds apiece! We’ll burn her — set her on fire before we go.”
“We can’t do that!” Hornblower’s reply was jerked from him even before he had time to think.